Visitors to a multiplicity of locations, for example, buildings, campuses, large events such as fairs, conferences or trade shows, shopping malls, airports, amusement parks, museums, or libraries, have to find their way to a desired location with some or no prior knowledge about the location, Some public places display signs and maps to help the visitor to his/her destination, however, these signs or floor plan displays can be confusing. Typically, a visitor needs to ascertain their position and orientation on the floor plan or map, find their destination on the map, and possibly memorize the path to the destination.
A typical electronic visitor guidance system may guide a user to a selected one of multiple locations in a defined area. The system includes a portable device for each user and multiple mounted indicators. The indicators include an infrared transceiver The indicators also include direction signs, and directional information corresponding to the relative direction in a path from the indicator to one or more selected locations in the defined area. The portable device directly communicates the information corresponding to the selected location via the device infrared transceiver to the indicator infrared transceiver. The indicator accesses the directional information and activates an appropriate mounted direction sign to guide the user toward the selected location.
However, disadvantages with the above system include the user having to be in range of the mounted visual indicator for the system to work. Also, if the floor plan changes the visual indicators may not be located in convenient places and thus need to be physically moved requiring time and labor costs, Further, the portable device's signal to the visual indicators may be disrupted or malfunction.
It would therefore be desirable to have an improved guidance system which is less confusing, simple to use, economical, and does not require the need for a human guide.